The pandemic has ushered in a wave of first-time home buyers. But it may not be entirely prompted by the pandemic: Millennials are now the largest cohort of the population and were already starting to settle down before COVID-19. The median first-time home buyer age is 32.
In January, first-time buyers comprised 33% of existing-home sales, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.
But the presence of first-time buyers is higher in some locales. CoreLogic, a real estate data firm, evaluated 500 counties to pinpoint the areas with the most mortgage applications in 2020 coming from first-time buyers. Researchers note that 10 of the 20 counties with the highest share of first-time buyers are in the New York metro area.
“Counties’ home prices can explain the large share of first-time buyers,” CoreLogic notes at its blog, CoreLogic Insights. “For example, in the top 4 New York metro counties, first-time buyers paid an average price which is about half or less of what the average price paid was in New York, New York (Manhattan)—at over $1.3 million.”
The following is a list of the 20 counties with the highest share of first-time home shoppers.
Source: “Top 20 Counties to Watch: Millennial Homebuyers Are Settling Down,” CoreLogic Insights (Feb. 10, 2021)
